


ghosts, their awful hunger

by saintsurvivor



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Blend of Modern and Star Trek Medicine, Crew as Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Families of Choice, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Major Character Injury, Medical Terminology, Mental Anguish, Minor Original Character(s), Night Terrors, Nightmares, Past Philip Boyce/Christopher Pike, Possible medical inaccuracies, Post Radiation Injuries, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shore Leave
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 22:12:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11587203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintsurvivor/pseuds/saintsurvivor
Summary: After his death and subsequent revival, Kirk is taken back to Georgia, McCoy unable to let him out of his sight.Post STID





	ghosts, their awful hunger

**Author's Note:**

> **Authors Note #1:** Alright guys. This is, most probably, my love letter to Jim Kirk, post STID, in all his injuried, post-radiation state. Because, whilst I generally forget Into Darkness happened at all, I love Jim Kirk and Leonard McCoy and I love hurting Jim Kirk and Leonard McCoy.  
>  **Authors Note #2:** There are medical inaccuracies in this, mostly because I have a limited range of medical knowledge, especially in radiation injuries. My knowledge is mostly respiration based because that's the ward I work on. Furthermore, there's a blend of modern medicine and Star Trek 23rd medicine, which has somehow become a very weird amalgamation of _something_  
>  **Authors Note #3:** Also, I know that the first chapter is pretty heavy with the technical shit and medical terminology, but it's setting the scene, pointing out how hurt Kirk truly is, so if you can parse through that, you'll get to hurt Kirk soon enough. Also, if you need something explained, just drop me a line and I'll be happy to help.  
>  **Authors Note #4:** Also I don't know how many chapters this is gonna be. oops.

#  _ghosts, their awful hunger_

### chapter one

 

The shuttle’s loud, making McCoy’s head ache even more that it is already.

He’d have thought that medical shuttles would have been less noisy, not only to allow the patients to rest, but for the medics to work without distraction. However, McCoy also knows that he wanted Kirk away from the hustle and bustle of San Francisco as soon as possible even more than he hates travel by shuttle.

McCoy knows Kirk; knows Kirk inside and out. Knows Kirk like he knows himself, how he knows the medbay of the _Enterprise_ even if he was blindfolded.

Thinks back to all the times Kirk’s been hurt, and how, after everything that went down with Nero and the _Narada_ , that he and Kirk retreated to Georgia for almost two weeks for a medically signed off leave.

Thinks back to how much good it did for the pair of them. How his Momma and Kirk got on like a house on fire, how McCoy and Joss managed to get things patched up enough to be able to be in the same room with each other without killing the other.

How Kirk had turned to McCoy on their last day at Georgia and said, with such sincerity that it had _burned_ , that he wished they could stay forever if it was possible.

Which is why they’re heading back to Georgia. Back to McCoy’s home, because he’s homesick and plain tired, and he’s just _so scared_. He wants to rewind time, wants to kill Khan himself, wants to do so many things that he just _can’t_.

He knows Kirk wouldn’t be able to heal there. Wouldn’t be able to heal properly with the admiralty, with the medica breathing down all their necks. Knows that Kirk would try and get back up on his feet as soon as he could even against McCoy’s and Medical’s wishes because he needs to look strong in front of everybody in Starfleet.

Kirk can’t be strong now, McCoy thinks, almost desperate. He just needs to _heal_.

Kirk makes a small noise, curled up on the biobed plugged into the side of the shuttle. He looks small, McCoy thinks. Small and fragile, burnt out. He can’t help himself, reaches out a hand to stroke Kirk’s still brittle hair. Kirk murmurs something, shifts a little and the cardiac monitor lets out a little unhappy bleep.

Peering at the screen frantically, McCoy sighs, reattaches the left nodule to Kirk’s left ankle, and the machine lets out a more happier chirp.

“You’re gonna kill me, kid,” McCoy sighs, running trembling hands through his somewhat greasy hair. Kirk murmurs again, shifting more, and McCoy can’t help himself.

He slips closer, pressing his back against the vibrating side of the medical shuttle. Curls his hands around Kirk’s, tries not to think about how it’s thinner, more frail, than it usually is. Closes his eyes, presses a kiss to those cracked, bruised knuckles.

Even if Khan’s bastard blood revived Kirk, it still didn’t help to heal the damage of the radiation Kirk had been bombarded with. It had healed Kirk to a degree that was shocking, but McCoy and Boyce had theorized that it had been too diluted by Kirk’s own human blood and the following transfusions needed to be as potent as it needed to have Khan’s superior healing.

There’s a little _wheeze_ , a rhythmic click of the blood pressure wrapped around Kirk’s right arm, the blood pressure cuff squeezing tightly. The cardiac monitor bleeped unhappily before settling, able to differentiate between the blood pressure cuff and Kirk’s normal cardiac rhythm.

McCoy watches him, a man obsessed. He still remembers attaching Kirk to the ECG after CPR, watching how his heart fluttered, stuttered. How he remained on edge, so sure he’d see Kirk’s heart stop all over again.

He can still see the times Kirk arrested, how he almost slipped away two times. How they’d ended up doing old fashioned cardio pulmonary resuscitation.They’d broken ribs, bruised his sternum, another multitude of injuries on top of Kirk’s already substantial amount, unable to use the osteoregenerator.

McCoy is just _so grateful_ that Kirk’s still here.

He times Kirk’s respiration rates, watches how the blood pressure is so low enough that McCoy knows another bag of fluids is probably in Kirk’s future. Tries not to notice the allevyn dressed over the almost fully healed tracheostomy hole they’d had to make.

To the side, Boyce sighs.

“You know he shouldn’t be out of the hospital yet, Len,” Boyce says quietly, sits in the chair next to McCoy.

“I know, Phil,” McCoy says, leans forward, cups Kirk’s hands in his own, presses another kiss to the cracking fingers. “But I know Jimmy, he was never gonna fully heal in Medical,”

“The only reason they’ve let you take him is because we’re both going, you know that right?” Boyce points out, as if McCoy hasn’t been read the riot act, and how a medical team would be following in their wake in a week to check everything was in the clear. “He’s barely medically fit,”

“ _I know_ , Phil,” McCoy growls, clenches his eyes shut, lets his forehead rest on Kirk’s hands. “Sorry-,”

“Don’t be sorry,” Boyce says gruffly, pats McCoy on the back, brushes fingers over Kirk’s skinny shoulder. “Just-just know that he might not make it,”

McCoy knows Boyce says it as tactfully as he can, a gentle reminder that even though Kirk’s been deemed medically fit enough for medical shuttle travel and to be settled into McCoy’s family home, that it could all turn in a second.

“That’s what scares me the most,” McCoy says softly. Boyce pauses, rests his hand on McCoy’s shoulder. Squeezes gently.

“He’s pulled through amazingly, Len,” Boyce says just as quietly. Squeezes McCoy’s shoulder again. “Jim’s strong, stronger than anybody knows, you know he’ll try his best,”

McCoy can’t help the half hearted sob that tears his throat.

“What if it’s not good enough this time?” McCoy asks, pleads almost. He doesn’t want to live in a world without Jim Kirk, he finds. Has built his orbit around Kirk’s gravity.

“Than it’ll still be his best,” Boyce tells him, doesn’t give false hope. That’s the worst thing about being a Doctor, McCoy finds. False hope is even worse than no hope.

“I just-,” McCoy breaks himself off, voice rough. His belly feels like it’s churning, chest burning. Closes his eyes against the burning of tears, hides his face in Kirk’s hands, feels the brittle skin against his three day scruff. “I can’t lose him, Phil, I _can’t_ ,”

Something cracks in Boyce’s face, and he crouches in front of McCoy, grips his shoulders in a grip painful enough to make him wince as he turns to the older man.

“I know you can’t, Len,” Boyce says, seriously enough that McCoy turns wide eyes to him. “But either way, you gotta be there for him, whether that’s gettin’ him healing or-or just being there for him,”

Boyce closes his eyes, bites his lip. McCoy knows he’s thinking about Pike.

“I’m sorry,” McCoy offers quietly.

“Don’t be sorry, Len,” Boyce says after a while, still gripping McCoy’s shoulder. “Just- don’t be sorry,”

McCoy watches him go, heading towards the john. His face is stoic, but his eyes are wet. McCoy closes his own eyes, clenches them shut hard enough to see stars. He scoots his chair closer, enough to lean his head on the biobed, lets his forehead rest against Kirks.

He cups his hand around Kirk’s sunken cheeks, thinks of seeing those glassy, vacant eyes again and bites his lip hard enough to make it bleed.

“Love you, Jimmy,” He says softly, brushes his fingers through Kirk’s hair.

Kirk mumbles something, presses closer to the source of the warmth, huddled beneath a multitude of blankets. McCoy smiles slightly, presses his forehead against Kirk’s a little harder, lets his hand rest on the nape of Kirk’s bent neck, brushing softly against Kirk’s bony jaw line.

“Love you so much, darlin’,” He says, honey thick and tired.

The shuttle trembles around him, something that would have made him swear and sweat and shake, but looking at Kirk, curled up and frail, makes something brave in McCoy.

Kirk’s always made him brave, McCoy thinks.

It’s time McCoy’s brave for Kirk.

Kirk lets out a whimper, fingers flexing against the blanket pressed close to his chest.

“Shhh, shhh, darlin’, that’s it,” McCoy sooths, gently stroking Kirk’s hair. “That’s it, go back to sleep, we’re almost there, sweetheart, Momma’s lookin’ forward to seeing you again, y’know she’s gonna love us bein’ home, gonna bake too much and make us all sick-,”

Kirk settles, breathing lightly, fingers loosening around the blanket. McCoy smiles at the sight, thinks about the little tatty bear he has in Georgia that his Momma kept. Wonders if Kirk would like it.

“That’s it, Jimmy,” McCoy murmurs again, shifting his head to press a kiss to Kirk’s head. “That’s it,”

If he ends up crying quietly into Kirk’s brittle hair, nobody else knows.

 

\--

 

The medical shuttle touches down at Medical General in the heart of Atlanta, Georgia.

McCoy hasn’t moved if he hasn’t had to in almost two hours, sat next to Kirk’s biobed. Watched him for any changes. Kept his hand on the back of Kirk’s neck, kept feeling for his pulse in his carotid artery.

“C’mon, Len,” Boyce says, hand on his shoulder. McCoy rises, bites back a grimace and a curse as his knees ache, back protesting slightly.

“Gettin’ too old for this, Jimmy,” He mutters as he runs his fingers through Kirk’s hair again, ignores the way blonde strands cling to his fingers as he pulls them through. Kirk leans his head into the touch slightly, even sedated as he is. “All these grey hairs are ‘cause of you,”

Boyce snorts as he passes them, fiddling with the monitors and unhooking the biobed in one smooth motion.

“All my hairs gone because of him and Chris,” Boyce says, then pauses for a moment. His face is pained, but his tone fond. McCoy averts his gaze. Thinking of Pike obviously still hurts him.

“Both of ‘em were troublemakers,” McCoy says instead of pointing out Boyce’s slip. Boyce has done it numerous times for him, McCoy knows.

Boyce snorts, but doesn’t say anything. McCoy watches as he makes sure the machines are still connected to Kirk, as he puts the biobed shield up, making sure Kirk won’t fall out as they transfer him out.

There’s a knock on the door, before the shuttle door opens with a clunk. A team of doctors and nurses bustle in side.

“Welcome back, McCoy,” Dr. Sanchez says quietly, rests his hand on McCoy’s shoulder for a moment.

“Not back for good, Sanchez,” McCoy says back, watches how the rest of the team joins Boyce, how seamlessly they fit everything into place.

“I know,” Sanchez says. He’s an old friend of McCoy’s. One he had kept relatively in touch with after the shitshow of a divorce he went through. Sanchez hadn’t minded being one of Kirk’s medical team when they’d arrived in Atlanta GenMed, and McCoy had never been more grateful to him. “Look’s like your boy’s been through the ringer,”

“He has,” McCoy says, falls into step with Sanchez and the rest. They let him take the head of the biobed, Boyce next to him as he keeps an eye on Kirk’s vital signs.

McCoy would like to say that he still remembers Atlanta GenMed. He’d spent more than ten years, several as a medical student, than as an F1 & 2 before eventually making his way to consultant and head of trauma and occasionally on call in the Emergency Room.

It had been his home, he’d spent more hours here than he had in his own house. He’d lived and _breathed_ the hospital, logged more hours in the trauma room and operating theatre than anybody on record.

But now? Now it was as foreign as the _Enterprise_ used to be. He didn’t recognise these gleaming hallways, or those immaculate signs labelling where to go. Didn’t recognise the majority of the nurses or doctors.

He clenches his fists around the head of the biobed. Allows Kirk’s shallow breaths to loosen his stomach.

“We’re going to keep him in overnight just for observation,” Sanchez says quietly, and McCoy nods. Sanchez had laid that stipulation out quite firmly and McCoy couldn’t have agreed more. “We’ve got a free side room in ITU that they’re gonna let us use,”

“Thank you,” McCoy says, follows the pull of SN. Kaur at the base of the bed. “I just-,” His voice fails him at the last minute, and he clears his throat. Sanchez looks at him from the corner of his eye.

“You don’t have to thank me, Len,” Sanchez tells him as they enter the turbolift, two of the nurses turning and jogging for the stairs because of the amount of equipment they have to shove in the turbolift.

“You’re doing so much for me,” McCoy says quietly, gently adjusting the blanket that’s slipped from Kirk’s shoulder, making sure its covering him, that his head is on the pillow as the turbolift _whirls_ around them.

“It’s the least I could do,” Sanchez says.

McCoy doesn’t say anything, turns his gaze towards Kirk, whose murmuring quietly. Fingers clenching and unclenching beneath the blankets. McCoy can’t help himself, reaches down, strokes his fingers through Kirk’s sleep tousled hair.

“Shhh, darlin’,” He whispers, stroking the back of his palm down the sunken slant of Kirk’s cheek. “Almost there, Jimmy, doin’ so good,”

Maybe it’s the touch, or McCoy’s gentle tone and words, maybe a combination of both, but Kirk turns a little, slack lips turned up just a little in a small smile, sinking deeper into the biobed just as the turbolift _whirls_ to a stop, the nurses just outside of the doors, glancing down at their vitalpacs.

They get to ITU relatively quickly, the corridors a blur of light around McCoy that he still doesn’t recognise.

But for all McCoy doesn’t recognise the corridors, or the people around him, he recognises the double doors to ITU, locked with an keycard, the forest green plaque announcing “ _Intensive Therapy Unit”_  and, just beneath that, “ _ONLY TWO TO A BED_ ,”.

One of the nurses swipes her keycard, and there’s a sudden blast of beeping machines as the soundproofing drops for a second as they get Kirk into ITU and then the door closes behind them.

“Alright, boys and girls,” The senior sister met them at the second set of double doors leading from main entrance to the side room, the room illuminated softly. “Let get Cappy settled,”

McCoy snorts a dry laugh, grinning at Sanchez as the other man throws an exasperated glance to the sister. SR Williams grins back, winking at McCoy as they push Kirk in head first.

McCoy’s dragged away from Kirk as Boyce and Sanchez get everything sorted up, hooking up equipment and monitors.

“Alright, McCoy,” Williams says, leaning against the nursing station, the dataPADD containing Kirk’s medical records in hand. “Let’s have a look at this shitshow you’ve brought us,”

“Good job I know you, Shelley,” McCoy snorts, twisting so he’s in view of Boyce and Sanchez getting Kirk situated.

“Oh please, you loved me,” Williams says, tapping away on the dataPADD. “Alright, grumpy, I’ll let you get to your boy in a bit, just tell me what the heckie deckie happened,”

McCoy doesn’t laugh at the phrase, but ends up stifling a snort.

“Basically?” McCoy says, Williams nods. “Fool kid jumped into a warp core to realign it, miraculously didn’t fuckin’ kick the damn bucket, but is in for a long fuckin’ road of pain,”

“Succinct,” Williams says admiring. She pulls a vitalpac out of her pocket, and McCoy watches as she pulls up Kirk’s vitals from the shuttle ride from SanFran Medical to Atlanta GenMed.

“He’s strong, I’ll tell you that,” Williams says.

“Yeah,” McCoy says quietly, watching as the medteam finishes what they’re doing, making sure Kirk’s catheter is free of obstruction, making sure all cardiac electrodes and blood pressure cuff and pulse and saturation oximeter is in the correct place. “Yeah, he is,”

 

\--

 

“Momma,” McCoy says, clutches the comm. so tightly in his hand that it creaks warningly.

 _“Oh, baby,”_ Kathleen says softly, and McCoy has to bite his lip to stop the burning of his eyes. “ _Talk to me,”_

“I’m scared, Momma,” McCoy chokes out, presses his back against the wall besides Kirk’s biobed. “I don’t know what to do,”

“ _It’s fine, baby, you’re doin’ all you can do_ ,” Kathleen soothes.

“I’m so scared, he’s gonna die, Momma,” McCoy says, gives voice to the fear he’s kept close to his heart all this time. “He’s gonna die and I ain’t gonna be able to save him this time,”

“ _Breathe with me, Leo,”_ Kathleen says, and McCoy closes his eyes, tries not to see the way Kirk’s eyes turned glassy, vacant. “ _T_ _hat’s it, baby_ ,”

“ _Now listen to me, Leo. That boy is so strong, and he’s got you fightin’ for him too, don’t give up on him already when he ain’t even dead, y’hear me, baby? You gotta keep fightin’ for him, just as he’s fightin’_ ,”

“I know, Momma,” McCoy rasps out. “I just-,”

“ _I know, baby,_ ” Kathleen says softly. “ _I know_ ,”

McCoy closes his eyes, thinks of his father, heart heavy.

 

\--

 

 

McCoy manages about two hours sleep that night.

He’s laid out on a thoughtfully procured cot, Kirk’s biobed lowered further enough that McCoy, when he managed to nod off, could keep a loose grip on Kirk’s hand, could see his face when his eyes were open.

A nurse pops in every now and then, usually about every two hours. They ask McCoy if he thought if Kirk could do with repositioning, or if McCoy wanted anything.

McCoy shakes his head every time, repositionings Kirk by himself, careful of the monitors Kirk’s hooked up to. Either way, he amasses a large and somewhat reluctant collection of emptied coffee cups, half eaten sandwiches piling up on Kirk’s drug cupboard.

He gets used to the _wheeze beep click_ of the blood pressure cuff tightening and slowly loosening, ends up somewhat lulled to sleep by the steady, reassuring beep of the cardiac monitor. Everything showing Kirk is as healthy as can be, that he isn’t going to backslide.

He’s still on edge though. Can’t forget the moment, back in SanFran Medical, where KIrk had flatlined, the monitors shrilling loud and frantically, just as McCoy had finally managed to fall asleep on a cot, still holding Kirk’s hand.

McCoy hadn’t slept for two days after, and it was only Boyce finally sedating him that McCoy remembered common sense.

Common sense always seems to go out the window when it comes to Kirk.

He gives up on sleep at around four in the morning, sitting up and letting his head rest on his arms that are resting on kirk’s biobed. He reaches forward slowly, lays a hand on Kirk’s cheek, feels the chill of his skin, avoids the nasogastric feeding tube taped to Kirk’s nose, taped to his cheekbone and tucked neatly behind his ear.

“We’re almost home, Jimmy,” McCoy says.”Winona messaged yesterday as well, said she hates that she’s out in the black whilst you’re like this,”

He doesn’t - _can’t_ \- blame Winona. Not when she’s the best Engineer Starfleet’s got and she’s being stretched so thin up in the black. Knows how she hates being up there whilst her kid’s suffering down here. She’d managed to go some sort of emergency leave, but only on the stipulation that it was a week.

McCoy had never been more hateful of politics in his _life_.

“You’re gonna see her soon though, her shuttle gets back into orbit in three days, and y’know Momma’s gonna mother you in Winona’s absence, and Jo’s gonna be such a handful with you, that girl adores you, y’know kiddo? Always askin’ after Uncle Jimmy,”

Kirk adores Joanna as well, asks after her as well, never lets a birthday or a holiday go by without sending some sort of present. He dreads letting Joanna see Kirk how he is, but knows it’s best for the both of them to actually see each other, hopes it’ll be another way for Kirk to heal.

“I miss you, kid,” McCoy says softly, feels the pain in his chest as Kirk lets out a breath, tilts his head up into McCoy’s touch. “I miss you so much,”

Kirk doesn’t say anything. Just simply sleeps on.

McCoy clenches his eyes shut, hard enough that he sees stars. Clutches Kirk’s hand just that little bit harder, feels the _thud-pump_ of his heartbeat against his fingers. Tries to fight the burn of his tears.

“You-you gotta come outta this, darlin’,” McCoy gasps, pressing his forehead to Kirk’s, watching the flutter of Kirk’s delicate eyelashes, wrenches his eyes away from the sunken slope of a cheekbone. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do without you, Jimmy, alright? So you gotta fight, you gotta fight your way back, sweetheart. I _need_ you too, please, Jimmy,”

He chokes on his tears, chest catching harshly on his own breath.

“You gotta, Jimmy, I can’t do this without you,”

The blood pressure cuff _wheeze beep clicks_.

“Jimmy, _please_ -,”

 

\--

 

“Thanks for everything, Sanchez,” McCoy says.

He’s standing on the shuttle that’ll take them out to McCoy’s mother’s house, a good two hour ride away. Kirk’s been loaded, biobed locked into place, no longer under precautionary sedation. He’s groggy, barely there and slipping in and out of sleep, but McCoy’s glad that the sedations wearing off.

Sanchez doesn’t say anything for a moment, and McCoy catches him looking at him.

“Just,” Sanchez pauses, and McCoy lets him carry on without interruption. “Take care of yourself too?”

“Yeah,” McCoy says.

“Yeah,” Sanchez says, as if he can smell McCoy’s bullshit a mile away.

McCoy sighs. “I’ll try, happy?”

“Not particularly,”

“Too bad,”

McCoy doesn’t say anything else, and Sanchez leaves it be, Boyce’s footsteps sounding from behind McCoy.

“Ready to go?” Boyce says. He’s looking at McCoy as if he’s going to fall to pieces in front of them all.

“Yeah,” McCoy says, shakes Sanchez’s hand, nods to Williams and the rest of her ITU team as they step away from the medical shuttle. They all wave as the shuttle door locks into place.

All too soon, they’re pulling smoothly away from Atlanta GenMed, and McCoy feels something he can’t explain in his gut as he watches the massive building eventually fade from view.

“Do you regret it?” Boyce asks after a while. McCoy glances at him, holds Kirk’s hand tight.

“Regret what?” He replies.

“Joinin’ Starfleet,” Boyce says. He sounds genuinely curious.

“Yes and no,” McCoy says slowly. “I was...in a bad place before Starfleet, and it helped me get back up on my feet, and I met Jimmy, I could never regret anything that lead me to the kid, but-,”

“But?”

“But I regret how much he’s hurt, how much the crew’s been through,” McCoy says, diverts his gaze to Kirk’s pale face.

He barely sees it, but Kirk’s eyelashes flutter, a low whimper coming from Kirk’s mouth.

“Jimmy?” McCoy says desperately, leaning forward. “Jimmy, darlin’?”

Kirk’s head tilts towards his voice, eyes flickering open just slightly. Just the sight of Kirk’s luminous eyes has McCoy breathing out in relief.

“ _B’nes?”_ Kirk manages.

“Heya, sweetheart,” McCoy says softly, raises a hand to pet through Kirk’s hair, slowly strokes the broad pad of his thumb under Kirk’s tired eyes. “You feelin’ okay?”

“Yeh,” Kirk murmurs, broken and hoarse. “W’ter?”

“Here, Jimmy,” McCoy barely manages to pull himself away, but grabs the small beaker of water Boyce hands over to him, a straw hanging over the edge of it. “Take it slow, kid, small sips,”

Kirk manages a small, lopsided smile. The skin of his lips crack with it, and it’s obvious it takes such an effort for him to suck down small sips of water from the straw, but it’s a _start_.

“Wh’re, where are we?” Kirk whispers, eyes still stuck steadfastly onto McCoy. McCoy can’t help the tears that burn his eyes, the way he clutches Kirk’s hand like he’s never going to let go.

“On the way to Momma’s, Jim,” McCoy says, ducks in close and smiles softly. “You’re still pretty injured, alright,? So we’re taking it easy, and we’re gonna get you all healed up and better,”

“Yeah,” Kirk says, smiles that beautiful lopsided smile again. McCoy could almost cry, drinks in the sight like a starved man.

“Love you, Jimmy,” McCoy says instead of all the things shooting like lightning through his head. “So fuckin’ much,” He tugs Kirk’s hand towards him, cups it against his cheek, presses a chaste kiss to the dry palm.

Kirk smiles again, lets out a breath.

“Love you too, Bones,” He says, still with that hoarse rasp, but McCoy doesn’t care. Only care’s that Kirk’s _awake_ , is _talking_.

“Don’t you ever scare me like that again, y’hear?”

Kirk’s head lolls closer to McCoy’s side, and the hand McCoy is holding to his own cheek twitches. After several minutes, Kirk’s fingers slowly, _slowly_ manage to curl to fit McCoy’s cheek on their own.

McCoy doesn’t even bother trying to hide his relieved laugh, turning his face into Kirk’s palm again, kissing it desperately.

 

\--

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](http://www.starflheets.tumblr.com)


End file.
